Election results 2019: Tony Abbott failed to understand even as he lost Warringah to Zali Steggall

Even as Tony Abbott was campaigning during what he called the fight of his life, he still didn't seem able to comprehend what was happening to him and his political career.

"I still regard myself as the underdog, because GetUp and covert Labor Party operatives, the unions, are putting a hell of a lot of effort into this seat," he said.

"But I think the mood on the ground is better. So, as long as we can keep things up I remain quietly confident."

Asked why he felt more confident, Mr Abbott offered this analysis: "I think once the election was called and the unofficial campaign became an official campaign people began to focus on, 'who do they want in government in Canberra?' And inevitably, if you are part of a Government which hasn't been perfect but which on balance has been good, I think that starts to reflect some credit on you."

The former prime minister — and now former member for Warringah — was speaking to the ABC's Four Corners program on Anzac Day, two weeks after Scott Morrison called the election and at about the mid-point of the campaign.

His comments suggest a lack of awareness of the real reason he was about to be tossed out after 25 years.

Local groups, professional campaigners

For those people who voted against Tony Abbott and for his successor Zali Steggall, his membership of a government he thought was reasonably "good" was completely irrelevant.

As Ms Steggall's co-campaign manager Anthony Reed told Four Corners: "The old affiliation to political brands, like Liberal and Labor, is actually breaking down. And what tonight's result proves is that you need to represent the values that your community cares for. And I think tonight's result is a strong vindication for all of those community groups who believed in representing a socially progressive view of the Liberal Party."

Mr Reed was right — and he should know. He's a former Labor Party staffer who now co-owns a political consultancy. Mr Reed helped independent Kerryn Phelps win Wentworth from the Liberals at the 2018 by-election.

The election result supports his thinking. While Mr Morrison and the Coalition recorded a victory against the odds nationally, the result in the traditionally safe Liberal seat of Warringah bucked the trend.

Mr Abbott suffered a 19 per cent swing against him in Warringah on a two-candidate preferred basis. The swing against him on the primary vote was almost 13 per cent.

That demonstrates a couple of things. First, that in Warringah it was mostly about the local member, not the Government — perhaps an unusual situation in federal elections increasingly driven by presidential-style campaigning.

Second, it shows the potential political power of well-resourced community groups whose passion for and understanding of the local area are given lethal potency by professional campaigners like Anthony Reed.

An organised campaign

Arguably, the campaign to oust Mr Abbott in Warringah was something new in Australian politics.

Yes, we've seen plenty of independents get up against major party candidates in usually safe seats. Most recently there's been Dr Phelps in Wentworth and Cathy McGowan in Indi.

As with Ms Steggall in Warringah, each of those candidates emerged from the community. In Ms McGowan's case, she even came from an organised community group — another hallmark of the win in Warringah.

But Warringah was different still in that the campaign to oust Mr Abbott grew organically from a handful of disparate community groups, including Voices of Warringah, North Shore Environmental Stewards and Vote Tony Out.

Those groups got together and hired Anthony Reed. They established the campaign machinery.

Activist groups mobilise

Of course, these types of campaigns require a lot of donated money to be successful and electorates like Warringah and Wentworth have high average net incomes. It raises the question of whether such a campaign model would work in less well-heeled communities.

But the trend away from major parties is also the reason for the emergence of another significant factor in this election: the high-profile presence of third-party campaign groups.

The left-leaning activist group GetUp and its new conservative nemesis, Advance Australia, were both very active in Warringah. Each were expecting to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars, mostly on advertising.

GetUp also flooded the electorate with several hundred volunteer door-knockers urging a vote against Mr Abbott. Hundreds more were on polling booths on Saturday handing out candidate "scorecards" reflecting the views of GetUp members.

GetUp has about 13,000 members in Warringah (only a fraction of whom actually doorknock or do booth work). That's about the size of the entire membership of the NSW Liberal Party (which sources put at up to 11,000).

Booth workers in Advance Australia T-shirts were handing out material supportive of the Liberal Party.

Advance Australia is just six months old, but it has already raised about $1.7 million in donations from supporters. Its national director, Gerard Benedet, says the donors include some corporations but are overwhelmingly "medium-size businesses who see what's happening with a closer connection to the real economy".

So at a time when the key weaponry deployed by political parties in a campaign — volunteers and money — are in increasingly short supply, the intervention of these groups can be significant.

"The reason it's necessary is our political parties have failed," Mr Benedet told Four Corners.

"They've gone further and further into issues and ideas that don't reflect mainstream values that the Australian people are expecting from them."

GetUp's national director, Paul Oosting, said: "Increasingly our members, and I think the wider Australia public, have realised that politics is far too important to leave to politicians.

"Increasingly people have been fed up with politicians and become disenfranchised with the way that they're not acting on issues we care about."

For Ms Steggall, it's a reminder that it's one thing to win a seat and quite another to hold onto it.

Now that Mr Abbott is out of politics, the NSW Liberal Party is sure to begin casting around for a candidate who's more closely aligned with the policies that Ms Steggall ran on. In other words, someone economically conservative, but socially progressive.

This may bring long-term Liberal voters who backed Ms Steggall over Mr Abbott back into the fold.

But even if that happens, Ms Steggall and the community groups that have ejected Mr Abbott would still be able to claim a significant victory: they will have forced the Liberal Party to start listening to them once again.